The Directorate General of Democracy prepares and implements targeted programmes, policies and standard-setting mechanisms. It monitors a number of European conventions and manages several Partial Agreements, where a selection of Council of Europe member States and often other countries co-operate on a given topic.

The Directorate General is composed of:

• The European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines and Health Care (EDQM).
• The Directorate of Democratic Participation
• The Directorate of Anti-discrimination
• The Directorate of Human Dignity, Equality and Governance

In its fields of competence, DGII regularly co-operates with national governments and key outside partners including local and regional authorities, civil society organisations and other international institutions, notably the European Union.